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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78928 ***
+
+
+                             EVIDENTLY NOT
+
+                            by W. C. Tuttle
+  Author of “Local Option in Loco Land,” “Pirates from Piperock,” etc.
+
+
+“Anyway, I don’t believe it, ‘Magpie’,” says I, and that starts an
+argument.
+
+It don’t take much for me and that long-complected cow-trailer to start
+an argument. All that one of us has got to do is to say, “I don’t think
+so,” and the stuff is all off, ’cause the other one does think so and
+he’s right there when it comes to telling why.
+
+Magpie Simpkins pulls his bronc across the trail and proceeds to make a
+cigaret while he ponders on the proper procedure to make me disagree
+with myself.
+
+We’re in a strange land, me and Magpie. We’ve been away over in the
+Buffalo Basin country, where some misguided _hombre_ said there was
+gold. It had been told to us thusly—
+
+“They say there is gold in the Buffalo Basin.”
+
+Just “they” was the only authority, which don’t give you nobody in
+particular to kill off for lying, but me and Magpie are willing to hold
+up our right hands and swear, to the best of our ability, that “they”
+lied.
+
+Punching a pack-train of burros is slow going, so we traded our
+long-eared rolling-stock for a couple of broncs and saddles, and here we
+are cutting across the State, aiming to hit Yaller Rock County
+eventually.
+
+“You’re wrong, Ike,” says Magpie after his smoke is going good.
+“Circumstantial evidence is as good or as bad as any other kind. If it
+wasn’t for circumstantial evidence we wouldn’t need a
+penitentiary—especially out here, where mostly every man who is arrested
+is guilty of something. Maybe he ain’t guilty of what he’s charged with,
+Ike, but he’s plenty guilty of something just as bad. It ain’t noways
+possible for every crime to have a witness and you can’t acquit a feller
+just because he sneaked up on his criminal occupation in the dark when
+everybody was in bed.”
+
+“Just the same, I don’t believe in it,” says I. “I don’t believe in
+putting a feller behind the bars just because he can’t prove he’s
+innocent. Sometimes, Magpie, things figure out so a feller just can’t
+prove things, and he ought to have the benefit of the doubt.”
+
+“Feller men should be circumspect,” says Magpie wise-like.
+
+I don’t know what he means and I’m danged sure he don’t.
+
+“Each and every man’s life should be a open book for all to read. No man
+should ever be placed in a position where he can’t explain the what and
+whyfor of every little minute of his life. Skulduggery and deception
+pilgrim hand in hand.”
+
+“Well,” says I, “you brings in words that astounds me, and I can’t say
+much in reply to things I don’t savvy, but down deep into me heart,
+liver and lights, Magpie, I know you’re crazy, but——”
+
+“There ain’t no ‘buts’, Ike. If every man lived free and open——”
+
+_Zing!_
+
+Magpie’s saddle-horn is just plain steel, never having been covered with
+leather, and that bullet skipped off that bare knob and sings sweet-like
+off into the brush. Then cometh the pop of the rifle. Me and Magpie sets
+there and looks at that saddle-horn.
+
+“Somebody shooting at coyotes,” opines Magpie. “Wild bullet.”
+
+“I don’t think so,” says I. “I think that somebody——”
+
+“Now, Ike, it ain’t reasonable to suppose that anybody——”
+
+_Splut!_
+
+A slug cuts right past my hip and tears a sizable hole in the cantle of
+my saddle. I falls right off that bronc and sets down in the brush, and
+Magpie follers me.
+
+“There goes your old argument,” says I. “I was right.”
+
+“Not necessarily, Ike. There might ’a’ been two coyotes.”
+
+Can you beat that? Even when another bullet seeps into the mesquite he
+ain’t convinced. Me and him are heeled with six-guns, but they ain’t
+much use against rifles.
+
+“You argues in favor of circumstantial evidence, Magpie, and when said
+evidence presents itself you deny it.”
+
+“Yeah? How about you, Ike? You don’t believe it, but you hops on to a
+chance to use it at the slightest opportunity.”
+
+“I ain’t hopping on to nothing! I don’t need to be shot at more than
+twice before I gets a hunch that I’m excess meat in this vale of tears.”
+
+“Pshaw! You’re finicky, Ike. Maybe them bullets wasn’t noways——”
+
+“Just lay them guns on the earth and reach for a cloud,” says a soft
+voice, and we stops our argument.
+
+There’s four of ’em, and every way we looks we’re staring down the
+muzzle of a rifle. One of them fellers is wearing a star, but she ain’t
+the star of hope for us. He hands out a pair of handcuffs and they seems
+to fit us fine. Then they makes us get on to our broncs and leads us
+away.
+
+“We’ll sneak into town from the far side,” says the sheriff. “We sure
+got to go easy-like, boys, ’cause they’re watching for us.”
+
+“We thought you was shooting at coyotes,” says Magpie.
+
+“You’re a danged good guesser, feller,” says the sheriff, and that’s all
+that was said.
+
+It was enough. They takes us off our broncs out behind a barn and then
+they eases us behind fences and sheds until they slams us into a ’dobe
+jail.
+
+“Nobody seen us,” grins the sheriff, “and it’s a danged good thing,
+’cause if the bunch knowed we had ’em in here they’d paw this here jail
+all to pieces.”
+
+“Not wishing to be inquisitive,” says Magpie, “but I’d admire to know
+why you puts us in here?”
+
+“Reckon you need telling?” asks the sheriff mean-like.
+
+“Feller kinda likes to know,” admits Magpie.
+
+“Well, being as you two has likely committed so many crimes that you has
+to find out which one you’re jailed for, I’ll tell you that you’re in
+jail for robbing the Greasewood bank and shooting the cashier. _Sabe?_
+Now you better lay low until we can take you to War Bonnet, ’cause this
+here jail won’t stand no rough use. The sentiment runs to necktie
+parties, ’cause that cashier was popular.”
+
+“Ain’t you afraid they’ll get out, Zeb?” asks one of them. “Maybe some
+of us better stay and look out for ’em.”
+
+“Nope. We don’t want nobody to suspicion they’re here. _Sabe?_ We’ll all
+ride away again and show up here after dark without no prisoners.
+They’ll have the road to War Bonnet watched, but as soon as they hear we
+didn’t have no luck, they’ll come in.” And then he turns to us. “You
+fellers ain’t got a chance in the world if you do get out. You’d just
+about—— Say, I got a scheme. Take off your clothes.”
+
+“Our clothes?” asks Magpie foolish-like.
+
+“Yeah. Hand ’em out to me. I reckon you won’t get loose none to speak
+about.”
+
+What could we do? We undresses and gives them our clothes, and when they
+locks the outside door me and Magpie Simpkins are as bare as the day we
+came into this life of few years and full of trouble. Me and Magpie sets
+there and gawps at each other.
+
+“Venice,” says Magpie. “How is all the little Milos?”
+
+“Tolable, Godiva, tolable.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+We sets there and stares into space for a while.
+
+“You ought to be satisfied with the evidence,” says I. “It ain’t noways
+possible for every crime to have a witness, and——”
+
+“Pshaw, they ain’t got nothing to hold us on, Ike.”
+
+“Nope. Me and you are foolish to stay here. Being a open book, so to
+speak, you ought to read ’em a few paragraphs, Magpie.”
+
+“Sh-h-h-h!”
+
+We hugs the wall of the cell and listens to some folks talking.
+
+“Well, they ain’t caught ’em yet, that’s a cinch. The sheriff will just
+about ride seventeen broncs to death and catch nobody.”
+
+“Uh-huh. Nobody seen ’em? Nobody got any idea where they went?”
+
+“Nope. Old man Stivers walks into the bank and finds Abe Walters laying
+on the floor. Whole danged town was asleep, I reckon. Believe me, the
+law won’t deal with this case. Everybody liked Abe.”
+
+Their voices fades away and me and Magpie sighs deep-like.
+
+“I—I wish I had a cigaret,” says Magpie. “I’m going to kill that sheriff
+for taking my tobacco and papers.”
+
+We sets there out of range of that window and watches night come along.
+As soon as it gets dark Magpie begins to vesticate around. The bottom of
+the one little window is about six feet from the floor and is guarded
+with four bars.
+
+Magpie yanks the bunk under it and climbs up. Pretty soon he begins to
+laugh.
+
+“No wonder that sheriff handicaps us, Ike. These bars are only stuck
+into the ’dobe mud.”
+
+He yanks and grunts for a while and then hops down. “Liberty confronts
+us, Ike. Let’s be going.”
+
+“Not me, Magpie. I may look well in the nude in a jail, but I sure ain’t
+going to mingle in no society like this. Do all the libertying you
+desire, old-timer, but excuse me. Good luck to you.”
+
+“You mean you’re going to stick here and get hung?”
+
+“I mean that I stays here; the hanging is a future consideration.”
+
+Magpie spits on his hands and seems to consider the height of the
+window.
+
+“Well, give me a boost then,” says I. “I ain’t as tall as you are.”
+
+That blasted window was made for small men to escape out of—men who
+ain’t bow-legged. I lost skin off both sides of me when I squeezed
+through, and when I hit the earth I’m in a cactus patch. Magpie slides
+through and lit setting down.
+
+“——!” he snorts. “Why didn’t you tell me about them cactus?”
+
+“I didn’t think there was any left, Magpie, except what’s in me.”
+
+We sneaked around a corner of the street and almost runs into a big
+building which is all lit up. We can hear somebody orating loud and
+clear.
+
+“Sunday night, Ike!” grunts Magpie, “What luck!”
+
+“Go to church if you want to, Magpie. I won’t.”
+
+He mumbles something about fools, as he climbs over a fence, and I
+climbs over with him.
+
+“What’s the main idea?” I asks as we lean up against a house.
+
+“Ike, it’s reasonable to suppose that men live in houses, ain’t it?
+Ain’t it reasonable to suppose that they might have more clothes than
+they’ve got on? I’m going to get clothes.”
+
+I’m no burglar. Neither is Magpie, for that matter, but nobody ever done
+a better job. The window was nailed down, so we smashed it out. Ever get
+into a strange house in the dark? Don’t do it! Take chances on the
+penitentiary and pack a lantern.
+
+We opened the first door we felt—and stepped off into the cellar.
+
+“Looking for preserved pants?” I asks, feeling for busted bones.
+
+“Ike, you’d seem comical if I hadn’t hit my head on the spud-bin.”
+
+Then we crawled back up-stairs and explored a while.
+
+“This is the dangest mixed-up house I ever seen!” grunts Magpie, pawing
+around the knob of a door.
+
+“Pete!” snaps a female voice. “Pete Bowers, you’re drunk again, ain’t
+you? Too drunk to talk, eh? Sunday night, too, of all nights! I’ve got a
+notion to take a club to you!”
+
+“Yash’m,” mutters Magpie, backing into me.
+
+“Don’t you ‘yash’m’ me! You undress and get into this bed or I’ll come
+out there and take you apart!”
+
+We stands still for a whole minute and then hears her yawn.
+
+“Ho-hum-m-m-m!” Then the bed squeaks as she gets up. “Well, I reckon
+I’ve got to undress you, you drunken pup!”
+
+And she strikes a match!
+
+Yes, we went some. Ever try running in a strange house in the dark? Any
+old time I feel like running again, I’ll pick a sixty-acre field in the
+middle of the day—and it won’t be even a cloudy day. I led the
+procession. Lucky for us I found a door, but unlucky for us it was the
+cellar door again.
+
+When we got through pawing each other around the place, Magpie wrenched
+a rocking-chair off my neck and used it to bust out the little window.
+We don’t no more than get over the fence when we hears that gentle
+housewife’s voice again.
+
+“Go ahead! Don’t mind me, Pete. Go way off where you’ve got plenty of
+room to stagger around. Ho-hum-m-m-m! That’s what alkyhol does to a
+he-human, I reckon.” And we hears her shut the window.
+
+“Gosh!” gasps Magpie, unhooking a tin can off his toes. “I hates to be
+glad over a man’s misfortune, but I’m glad Pete drinks.”
+
+“There’s circumstantial evidence for you, Magpie. Pete will likely come
+home sober and get —— whaled out of him for getting drunk and busting up
+the furniture.”
+
+“As I said before, Ike, a man may not be guilty as charged, but he’s
+guilty of something just as bad. Pete must be guilty of drinking or
+she’d never mistake us for him. See how it works?”
+
+“Maybe he don’t always bust up furniture, Magpie.”
+
+“To that argument, Ike, I will say this: They’ve got so danged much
+furniture that she won’t never miss a few chairs or a sofy or two.”
+
+“Let’s go back to the nice little jail, Magpie,” I suggests. “I ain’t
+worth a dang undressed. The shades of night may be drawn, but just the
+same my conscience bothers me. You can boost me in——”
+
+“Yeah, like ——! Want to get lynched?”
+
+“Well, I’d at least be dying with my pants on. Somebody is going to kill
+us pretty soon anyway.”
+
+“Keep your nerve, Ike. Nerves will win.”
+
+“Nerve ain’t no good when you ain’t got no pants. I’d fight a buzz-saw
+when I’m dressed, Magpie, but this Adam and Eve business saps my nervous
+system until she don’t register a spark. Where are we headed for now?”
+
+“After something to give you courage, dang you! I’m tired of hearing you
+kick. Dang the man who throws loose cans around! How in thunder do you
+miss ’em, Ike?”
+
+“Walking in your footsteps, Magpie. Your feet are so darn big that I has
+a clear trail.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+I followed him over another fence and to the side of another house. This
+time the window was loose, and we slides inside. For fear of another
+cellar door we crawls this time. Magpie finds a bureau with matches on
+it, so we pulls down the shade and lights a lamp. There didn’t seem to
+be a soul in the house. Magpie rustled into a closet and comes out with
+a suit of clothes. He didn’t tell me it was the only suit in the place;
+he just holds her up and asks me if I’ll wear it.
+
+“Not me,” says I, “I’d never make a good preacher, ’cause I’m so
+bow-legged that the devil could get behind me without going around.”
+
+That suit was made for a short _hombre_ who wears a forty-eight coat.
+Magpie has plenty of room in a thirty-eight and has the longest legs in
+Montana. He got into that layout and then stands out in the middle of
+the room while I lays on the bed and sobs like a baby. Honest to
+grandma, I never seen anything like him! He’s got one of them
+flat-topped black hats, a collar that hooks in the back and that long
+loose black coat and them pants that hit him between the knee and the
+ankle. He made the shoes fit by cutting holes for his big toes.
+
+He looks at me pious-like and says—“Brother, ain’t you going to cover up
+your shame?”
+
+I wipes the tears out of my eyes and hunts for something to wear. I sure
+went through everything, but all I can find in man’s clothes is a pair
+of them elastic-topped shoes with the rubber wore out. Magpie sets down
+in a chair and watches me hunt.
+
+“Dang your hide, help me, can’t you?” I yelps. “I’ve got to have
+something to wear, ain’t I?”
+
+“Yes,” says he, “I’d opine you have, and it looks like skirts.”
+
+“Like ——! How would I look in skirts? Not for me!”
+
+“Ike, that church will soon be out and then we’ll have to fight our way
+loose. You—get—into—them—skirts! _Sabe!_”
+
+“Well, dang you, Magpie, give me help!”
+
+“I don’t know a thing about ’em, Ike.”
+
+“You can button me up, can’t you?” I yelled. “Don’t act so uppish! Do I
+put on the straight-jacket first or don’t I?”
+
+“You’ll make a —— of a looking woman, Ike. Your whiskers are two inches
+long.”
+
+“They are,” says I, cinching myself into the thing, “but I’d rather be a
+bearded lady than a nude corpse. I’ll find something to put over my face
+until I get killed or find a razor.”
+
+I gets into everything that seemed to have an entrance and buttons,
+while Magpie sets there and cries on his own bosom. My dress was white,
+with pink flowers on it, and the sleeves only comes to my elbows.
+
+I found a pair of green stockings and managed to squeeze my feet into
+that pair of elastic-topped shoes. Then I got a hat. Man, that was some
+war bonnet. It’s got some red roses on it and right up the front rears
+the wing of a dove. It sets fine on the back of my head. Then I found
+some stuff to drape over my face.
+
+Magpie digs into the bureau and finds two six-guns. He hangs one in the
+tail of his coat while I shoves the other into the bosom of my dress.
+
+“Now, suppose somebody sees us going away, Magpie,” says I. “Don’t you
+reckon they’ll wonder where we’re going?”
+
+“More than likely. We may have to shoot our way loose, Ike. Reckon we’ll
+take them two empty valises over there, so she’ll look like we was going
+some place. They’re empty but locked, so we’ll just take ’em along to
+make the play good.”
+
+Now I don’t want you folks to think that me and Magpie didn’t have no
+morals. There is some things you have to do, but that ain’t no reason
+why you can’t square it later on.
+
+We shut the window and went to the front door.
+
+“We’ll walk right out like we owned the shanty,” says Magpie, but just
+as he reached for the knob somebody knocked. I reached for my bosom, but
+Magpie just turned the knob and opened the door.
+
+“Ah, Reverend—” says a soft voice and I sees two men on the steps, and
+they’ve got their hats in their hands.
+
+“Reverend, we-all is from War Bonnet. _Sabe?_ War Bonnet has delegated
+us to come up here and offer to double any ante that Greasewood has made
+you-all. We comes to hire you out at your own salary. Is you receptive?”
+
+“There’s more sinners in War Bonnet than ever dared to hive up here,”
+squeaks the other feller. “You’d have a hyiu place to show off. War
+Bonnet is going to have a preacher or bust a cinch.”
+
+“We brings a wagon,” states the first feller, “and we can take you-all
+right with us and haul down your effects later on.”
+
+“The raven fed Elijah,” gasps Magpie. “Lead us to that wagon.”
+
+“Name’s Pearce,” says the soft speaker; “called ‘Peaceful’ ’cause I
+ain’t. This feller is knowed as ‘Happy,’ ’cause he never was. Last
+name’s Harmon. Come on, folks.”
+
+We rode out of town in the wagon, Magpie and Peaceful in the front seat
+and me and Happy in the back. It was some road, believe me. Peaceful
+missed most of the rocks with the front wheels, but the rear wheels
+didn’t seem to interest him none to speak about. Sudden-like we lifts
+high on one side, the same of which seems to unbalance me, and then we
+slams the other side into a rock, and the preacher’s wife grabbed for
+the seat and got her hands full of grass.
+
+I sets there in the dark, with my feet tangled in my skirt, and tries to
+get that bonnet off my nose.
+
+“Lawdee!” I hears Peaceful grunt. “Reverend, you-all’s wife is
+overboard!”
+
+“She sure is!” I yelps through my hat. “You —— fool, you couldn’t herd a
+cow down a lane!”
+
+All is still for a moment and then Peaceful says:
+
+“I’m plumb glad, Reverend, that you-all’s wife ain’t one of them there
+‘holier than thou’ sort of females. She sure speaks up.”
+
+“Emily,” says Magpie choking-like, “get back on the wagon.”
+
+“All right, Mose,” says I, and just as I climbs in several fellers rides
+up and seems to surround us.
+
+“Who are you?” asks a voice.
+
+“Hello, ‘Baldy’,” says Happy. “Who wants to know?”
+
+“Hello, Happy. Who’s with you?”
+
+“My Uncle Mose, Aunt Emily and Peaceful Pearce.”
+
+“Howdy, Peaceful,” says another. “This is Pete Myers.”
+
+“I recognizes you, Pete. Who you-all expecting?”
+
+“Nobody much. Evenin’, folks,” and they rides away.
+
+We jolts along for a spell and then Happy says:
+
+“Ma’am, every time I hear of anybody by the name of Mose I think of
+bulrushes. Does you connect your husband with that Bible story?”
+
+“Partly,” says I, “the first part. He’s never rushed.”
+
+“You-all got a cold, ma’am?” asks Peaceful. “Voice sounds thick. Ever
+put anything around your neck?”
+
+“Just took something off,” says I. “Didn’t do me any good.”
+
+“Rocking-chair ain’t much benefit,” says Magpie.
+
+“Never heard of using one,” says Peaceful. “How does you go about it?”
+
+“Hang it on your neck in the dark.”
+
+“One of them there charm cures, eh?” asks Happy. “Might benefit.”
+
+“Never has,” says Magpie, “but there’s a first time for everything.”
+
+Then we drove into War Bonnet.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+War Bonnet is just about the same size as Paradise. If you don’t know
+what size Paradise is, you ain’t got nothing on anybody else, ’cause
+there ain’t never been a census taken. Once in a while they totals up
+the casualties for the year and holds sort of a memorial, but the exact
+amount of survivors fluctuates.
+
+War Bonnet strikes me as being a danged bad place to have your gun
+stick. I envies a picture I seen once. It was called “The Cow Girl.” I
+never seen a cow girl in my whole life, but this picture shows her with
+a belt around her waist and a big Colt hanging in the holster.
+
+My gun is down inside my bosom so far that I can’t seem to get it loose,
+and that danged hammer is digging into me until I feels that I’m going
+to be a heap tattooed around the waistline.
+
+Peaceful herds them broncs up to the door of a house. I reckon that news
+travels fast, ’cause Peaceful says to a woman who comes to the door—
+
+“Ma, we got ’em.”
+
+And it ain’t more than a minute until the front yard is full of female
+folks.
+
+“Get out, Emily, and remember you’re the spouse of a sky-pilot,”
+whispers Magpie.
+
+Happy helped me out—or rather yanked me out. I asks him if he’s married,
+and he whispers—
+
+“Not now. Why?”
+
+I didn’t get a chance to tell him, ’cause just then Magpie hops off the
+front wheel without thinking of that heavy six-gun in the tail of his
+coat. It caught inside the wagon-box as he dropped, and then she flips
+high and handsome and comes down on his head. Magpie sinks to his knees
+and Peaceful and Happy bows their heads and takes off their hats. They
+never seen him get hit.
+
+Pretty soon Magpie staggers to his feet and says some words under his
+breath that you’ll likely find in the Bible, but not all in one
+sentence, and the herd surrounds us.
+
+One old girl got her arms around my neck and I has a —— of a time to
+keep her from rooting into my whiskers.
+
+“Glory be!” she gurgles. “Oh, we need a minister so bad.”
+
+“That’s the kind you’ve got,” says I, and then I gets near enough to
+Magpie to kick him on the ankle.
+
+“Razor!” I hisses in his ear. “I ain’t no bearded lady!”
+
+“Brethren,” says Magpie, “canst any one loan me the lend of a razor? We
+comes away sudden-like, and my wife is so danged particular that she
+won’t let me be seen in public without a shave.”
+
+Razors? Say, a barber would starve to death in a community like that.
+
+“You-all hives up in my house tonight,” says Peaceful, herding us
+inside, and War Bonnet’s best citizens follers us in. Them women seems
+to consider me a heap and it makes me nervous.
+
+“I’d admire to go somewhere and fix up a little,” says I. “I fell out of
+that danged dead-ax wagon, and I has a feeling that I sat on a cactus.”
+
+“Haw! Haw—” begins somebody, but shuts right up.
+
+“Right this way,” says Peaceful, and he lets me and Magpie into a
+bedroom. Magpie has a lump the size of an egg on top of his head where
+that gun hit him. Both of my green stockings has come down and are under
+my shoes, and that fall seems to have unbuttoned my dress until that
+straight-jacket sticks out through the back. Magpie looks me over and
+seems to choke with emotion.
+
+“Ike, you’re the wildest-looking wife I ever had.”
+
+Just then somebody knocks on the door.
+
+“Parson, what denomination does you represent?”
+
+Magpie looks at me foolish-like and then back at the door.
+
+“Round church—circular sect.”
+
+“Oh,” says the feller. “I hoped you was a Baptist.”
+
+“New on me, Magpie,” says I. “Round church?”
+
+“Uh-huh. Paw said it was the best kind, ’cause the devil can’t corner
+you, Ike.”
+
+As far back as I can remember, Ike Harper’s face has been partly
+obscured with hair, but for once he gets a clean view of it.
+
+My golden hair ain’t hanging down my back, but I’ve got enough to bluff
+with. Magpie shaved my arms to the elbow and smoothed his own face a
+little. He also cinched up my dress and I managed to pin them green
+stockings so they won’t trip me.
+
+“Now,” says I, “as soon as they gets into bed we’ll make our sneak.”
+
+“Uh-huh. Just as soon as we can, Ike. Hang on to your nerve and don’t
+cuss. We’ve got to locate some broncs. Remember you’re a lady, Ike. More
+than that, old-timer, you’re the wife of a preacher. Let’s face the
+music.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+That parlor is sure filled with folks. Peaceful seems to be sort of a
+leader. He comes up to Magpie and says:
+
+“Reverend, I’m dawg-gone sorry, but I ain’t never heard your name. I
+wants to introduce you-all to the folks.”
+
+“My name?” Magpie looks around foolish-like. “Thought you knowed it. I’m
+the Reverend Moses—er—Meek. This female person is Emily. Being married
+to me makes her Meek, too.”
+
+We shakes hands all around and then a tall, lanky female says to me:
+
+“Seems like your face is familiar, dearie. What was your maiden name?”
+
+“Lily Langtry,” says I, thinking real quick and saying the first name
+what comes to me.
+
+“Lily? I thought your husband called you Emily?”
+
+“Lily was my maiden name,” says I. “I’ve been married more than once.”
+
+“More than once?”
+
+“Yeah. First time it was a Piegan squaw. Her name was Dawn——”
+
+“I beg your pardon!” she gasps. “How could you——”
+
+“Sh-h-h-h-h!” I hisses. “I was a Mormon.”
+
+“Oh!” says she and nods her head.
+
+Maybe she understood, but I didn’t. I makes up my mind to keep still
+after this.
+
+Then Mrs. Peaceful skids up to me.
+
+“My dear Mrs. Meek, is there anything I can do for you? Anything you
+would like to have?”
+
+“Have you got the makings of a cigaret? Mine was in my pants—”
+
+I sees Happy turn his head and stare at me and I bites my tongue.
+
+Mrs. Peaceful is staring into my face and I says:
+
+“For my husband. He’s timid about smoking in company.”
+
+“Oh!” says she. “Certainly. How much?”
+
+“Enough for about thirty cigarets,” says I, and just then I hears
+Magpie’s voice:
+
+“Wine is verily a mocker, brethren. I shall devote my time in stamping
+out the evils of wine, women and—er—cigarets. Them little paper rolls,
+innocent as they may look, are the torch of the devil.”
+
+“How many did you say, Mrs. Meek?” she asks.
+
+“Ma’am, you can use your own judgment. I ain’t afraid of the devil.”
+
+This may sound foolish to some folks, but anybody who smokes them
+“torches of the devil” will appreciate my feelings. I ain’t had a smoke
+since that misguided posse shot a hole in the cantle of my saddle, and
+right now I’m receptive to lynching if I can just have one little chance
+at a cigaret before they yank the rope.
+
+I’m in a trance, thinking about a nice little smoke, when I hears Mrs.
+Peaceful saying to Magpie:
+
+“Reverend Meek, can you spare your wife for one night? The fact is we’re
+a little shy on sleeping accommodations. We only have two beds. My
+sister is with us, so you will have to sleep with my husband. Mrs.
+Jackson has kindly offered to take Mrs. Meek home with her for tonight.”
+
+That long, lanky female speaks up.
+
+“Yes indeed, it will be a pleasure for me to entertain Mrs. Meek.”
+
+“Only for one night, of course,” says Mrs. Peaceful, “Tomorrow we will
+fix you up in permanent quarters. You won’t mind, will you, dearie?”
+says she to me, but I can’t speak.
+
+Gosh a’mighty, there is questions that Solomon couldn’t answer.
+
+“What’s the matter, Reverend? Don’t you feel well?”
+
+I looks over at Magpie. I can see him sort of get tight all over, and
+his Adam’s apple ducks up and down his throat one hundred and fifty
+ducks per minute.
+
+“Can I bring you-all a drink?” asks Peaceful.
+
+“Ug-ug-ug—” gasps Magpie. “Uh-huh-uh-uh-huh. About four-fingers in a
+washtub.”
+
+Me and Magpie stares at each other until Peaceful brings him a dipper of
+water, and then the darn fool stood right there and washed his face.
+Never took his eyes off me all the time. Just splashed the water on his
+face, like he was in a trance, and all this time I’m digging into the
+bosom of my dress, trying to get that blamed six-gun loose from a bunch
+of lace. I’m keyed up to kill without regrets.
+
+“Do—do you-all have attacks like that very often?” asks Peaceful.
+
+“No,” says Magpie weak-like, leaning against the wall, “not very—thank
+Gawd!”
+
+“Amen!” says Mrs. Jackson. “Flesh is weak.”
+
+“You’re danged right,” I whispers. “And she’s getting weaker.”
+
+“Well,” says Mrs. Jackson, “we might as well say good night. I know Mrs.
+Meek must be tired.”
+
+I know we shook hands. I was just about as happy over it as a feller
+would be who was shaking hands with a jury that had convicted him of
+murder in the first degree. I stumbles around that room, shaking hands
+like a darn fool, and then I hears Mrs. Peaceful saying—
+
+“Kiss your wife good night, Reverend.”
+
+Most of ’em giggles like a lot of locoed loons and Magpie staggers over
+to me. He didn’t kiss me, but they didn’t know it.
+
+He hooks on to me like a grizzly bear and hisses in my ear:
+
+“Think of something! Dang your hide, think fast!”
+
+“Good night, Moses,” says I. “Take care of yourself.”
+
+Then my knees got so weak that I tripped in my skirt and fell off the
+front porch.
+
+I hears everybody expressing sympathy and crowding around me in the
+dark, but I got to my feet.
+
+“Gracious!” exclaims one of them females. “Did you hurt yourself?”
+
+“Skinned one leg all to thunder!” I snaps and walks out of there with
+Mrs. Jackson trailing me.
+
+Think? My gosh, I thought of everything in the past and a lot of things
+in the future. She led me to her house, and shoved me inside. I guess
+she had furniture—I don’t know.
+
+“Will we have a prayer before we retire?” she asks.
+
+My brain seems to have got so hard that I can’t shake it, so I reckon I
+nods. I looks all around and then I says—
+
+“You got two beds?”
+
+“No, just one.”
+
+“Good night!” says I. “This won’t work a-tall. I can’t sleep a wink with
+a stranger. I’ve either got to hive up with my—uh—husband or sleep
+alone.”
+
+“Pshaw!” says she. “Now, ain’t that too bad? I don’t see what we are
+going to do.”
+
+Then I gets a inspiration.
+
+“Why not have Mrs. Peaceful’s sister sleep with you?”
+
+“Well! Of course she can! You sure can figure out things, Mrs. Meek.”
+
+“Uh-huh. A preacher’s wife has to.”
+
+“I suppose so. How long have you been with Mr. Meek?”
+
+“Off and on for twelve years.”
+
+“Off and on?” she gasps.
+
+“Yes’m. Two years ago me and ‘Dirty Shirt’ Jones——”
+
+Then I remembers that I’m a lady.
+
+“Yes, yes!” says she. “Tell me about it!”
+
+“Tomorrow. She’s a long, long tale, ma’am.”
+
+“Uh-huh, I suppose even ministers’ wives have their troubles.”
+
+“You know it,” says I. “A dang sight more than you think.”
+
+The Pearce family was surprized to see us back, but when we explains
+things they sees my point of view and agrees to it.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Magpie stole the makings of cigarets from Happy Harmon, and we laid on
+that bed and smoked ourselves black in the face.
+
+Every time Magpie looks at me he chokes. After he gets through having
+convulsions, we starts figuring out things.
+
+“We’ve got to get away,” says Magpie. “Honest to gosh, Ike! There ain’t
+never been a preacher in War Bonnet, so Peaceful tells me. Greasewood
+manages to hire one and they crows over War Bonnet.”
+
+“I suppose everybody what wants to get married has to go to Greasewood,
+and if they wants to hold a funeral they has to call on the same city
+for help, eh?”
+
+“Help ——! War Bonnet hates Greasewood so bad that they’ve held off their
+marriages for seven months! Down at the undertakers is two corpses
+waiting for a preacher, and they’re figuring on holding revival services
+all the rest of the week.”
+
+“Peaceful told you all that, Magpie?”
+
+“Yeah. War Bonnet hankers for a preacher like a calf for its maw. Holy
+henhawks, look what I’m up against! I can’t preach!”
+
+We smokes a while and then I says— “Magpie, did you ever read the
+Bible?” “Read it? Part of it, Ike. I’ve read the dictionary, too, as far
+as that goes, but I can’t repeat any of it. Darn this suit of clothes!”
+
+“You ought to be proud of them clothes, Magpie. A darned old cow-thief
+like you ought to be glad to have folks mistake him for a preacher.
+Piety fits you like the diamonds on a rattlesnake.”
+
+“Yah!” he snorts. “Maybe. More than I can say for you, ’cause you can’t
+be described in words, Ike. Them women looks you over, and I hears one
+of ’em say: ‘The poor thing! A woman like that couldn’t help being
+good.’ Haw! Haw! Haw! Woman, you sure got some figure! It won’t never do
+to let ’em see you in the daylight.”
+
+“Aw, ——! Let’s get away, Magpie. The farther we are away from here in
+the morning the better it will be for us and for War Bonnet. Let’s leave
+our baggage here and sneak away.”
+
+“We don’t want no useless impediment, that’s a cinch, Ike. Them valises
+are empty, I reckon.”
+
+Magpie picks one of ’em up and shakes it.
+
+“Something in it, Ike. I can hear it swish.”
+
+He picks up a pair of shears off the dresser and rips a hole in the top.
+He stares inside for a while and then rips a hole in the top of the
+other one. Then he stumbles over to the bed and sets down.
+
+“My ——!” he gasps. “I—I thought the mint was in Washington!”
+
+“It sure is, Magpie.”
+
+“Like——it is. It’s in them satchels!”
+
+I sneaked over, like I was afraid they’d fly away, and peers inside.
+Then I digs in with both hands. Greenbacks! Everything from fives to
+twentys. They don’t weigh much, but—oh man! I dumps one of ’em on the
+bed and wealth spews all over the place.
+
+Me and Magpie stares at each other for a while and then Magpie begins to
+grin.
+
+“Well,” says I, “what’s so danged funny about it?”
+
+“Don’t you see it, Ike?” Magpie smooths his mustache and looks wise as a
+old owl. “Don’t you see it? I ain’t the only fake preacher in the
+county. Haw! Haw! Haw! Murder will out, as they say.”
+
+“Let her out then!” I snaps. “I want to laugh too.”
+
+“Ike, that Greasewood preacher is the _hombre_ what robbed the bank.
+Last person on earth to be suspected, don’t you see? He just puts it in
+his old valises and goes on preaching. _Sabe?_ The son-of-a-gun!”
+
+“Circumstantial evidence, Magpie.”
+
+“Circumstantial ——! Nothing circumstantial about it, Ike. Where would a
+preacher get all that money?”
+
+“If they catch us with it he’ll likely get a chance to pronounce ‘ashes
+to ashes and dust to dust’ over us,” says I. “What will we do with it?”
+
+Just then somebody knocked on our door.
+
+Magpie looks at that money, slips his gun loose, walks over to the door
+and opens it about an inch. It’s Peaceful.
+
+“Reverend,” says he apologetic-like, “I sure hates to disturb you-all,
+but ‘Shirtpocket Bill’ has done got a slug inserted under his
+vest-pocket, and I reckon he’s needing a preacher mighty bad. Can’t
+you-all come up to the Golden Glow and ease him off? He can’t last very
+long and—Shirtpocket’s sort of religious—sort of.”
+
+Magpie hesitates and looks back at me.
+
+“Go ahead, Mose,” says I. “If you need help, send for me.”
+
+“Dawg-gone good of you-all,” says Peaceful. “A woman’s hand might soothe
+him a heap. Don’t reckon that Shirtpocket ever had a decent woman speak
+to him. Be awful dawg-gone nice if you’d both come.”
+
+“Just as soon as I can get my pants—skirt on,” says I. “Tell Shirtpocket
+Bill to wait for us.”
+
+He shuts the door and Magpie hops on to me.
+
+“Dang you, Ike, you’ll give us away yet! Why didn’t you tell him we were
+sick or something? Shirtpocket Bill’s demise don’t mean nothing to me.”
+
+“Me neither, old-timer, but you got to play or get out of the pot. Cheer
+up, Moses Meek, he may die before we get there. This will give us a
+chance to see where some broncs are tied.”
+
+We fixed up a little and walked out to where Peaceful waits for us.
+
+“This sure will tickle Shirtpocket all to thunder,” says he.
+
+“Reckon he’ll be sorry he didn’t get shot before.”
+
+“Yes,” says I, “a long time before.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+We pilgrimed up-town and went into a place where there seemed to be
+plenty of life—lot of dance-hall females, et cettery, and they sure
+looked me over. Likely I’m the first decent woman they ever seen in the
+Golden Glow.
+
+We walked up to the bar and Peaceful says to the bartender:
+
+“I done brought a little Gospel aid for Shirtpocket. Has he passed out
+yet?”
+
+The hooch-handler looks us over and nods.
+
+“Uh-huh. About ten minutes ago. Said he was coming back.”
+
+“Said he was coming back?” I asks.
+
+“Yep. Jim Freeman, the _hombre_ what shot him, is still here, and
+Shirtpocket said he was coming back to get him.”
+
+“Haunt him?” asks Peaceful.
+
+“Haunt him?” The bartender slides a bottle and glasses in front of us.
+“Haunt him? I don’t know—he didn’t say.”
+
+“Whoa, Emily!” snorts Magpie and I stops that glass just short of my
+mouth. I puts it down, while they stares at me.
+
+“Let the old girl have a shot if she wants it,” says somebody behind me,
+and then Peaceful says—
+
+“My ——! I thought you was killed, Shirtpocket!”
+
+That _hombre_ has the crookedest face I ever seen. He’s got a gun on
+each hip and enough ammunition to exterminate the human race.
+
+“Naw!” he grunts. “Slug hived up in a four-bit watch and knocked all the
+air out of me.”
+
+“Meet Reverend Meek, Shirtpocket. The lady is his wife. They comes up
+here to ease your last moments.”
+
+“My ——! They did? I’m going to have that busted watch set with diamonds
+and have it packed in a plush case. Ease my last moments? Well, well! I
+sure am eternally obliged—to the watch. Pleased to have metcha—alive and
+well.”
+
+Just then we hears a racket near the door and I turns to see that
+Greasewood sheriff and his deputies coming straight for the bar. I kicks
+Magpie in the ankle and digs into my bosom for my gun. Peaceful sees
+’em, too. He loosens his gun and walks right across the room to where a
+bunch of fellers are playing roulette. There ain’t a thing for me and
+Magpie to do but stand still.
+
+“Shoot ’em in the neck, Ike!” hisses Magpie. “They might have watches in
+their pockets.”
+
+That fool gun stuck again! I yanks the bosom of my dress up around my
+neck, but the gun won’t let loose, so I reaches over and picks the
+bottle off the bar.
+
+The sheriff stares at me and Magpie and we stare right back at him.
+
+“You-all better go back to Greasewood,” states Peaceful’s voice and the
+sheriff turns.
+
+There is Peaceful and several others and they’ve all got their guns out.
+The sheriff stares around and just then I sees Shirtpocket Bill yank a
+gun with each hand. I glances at the door and there stands a _hombre_
+with a sawed-off shotgun in his hands.
+
+“Stand back!” he yelps. “There ain’t four-bit timepieces enough in the
+town to stop all this lead!”
+
+He yanks the gun to his shoulder just as Shirtpocket begins to heave
+lead from both guns. I dropped flat when Shirtpocket opened up, and just
+as I hits the floor I hears that shotgun roar twice and about all the
+illumination in the saloon gets busted.
+
+Then I hopped to my feet. I knew where that sheriff stood when the
+lights went out, so I pops him over the head with that bottle of hooch.
+Then I grabs Magpie by the arm and starts for the door. Somehow I gets
+that gun loose this time. I feels that the upper part of my dress is up
+around my neck and the lower part is down around my feet, but this ain’t
+no time for modesty.
+
+“Straight ahead!” I yelps. “Get your gun loose and help me cut a trail!”
+
+“Whoo-ee!” I hears Peaceful yelp. “Try to take our preacher back, will
+you?”
+
+_Bing! Bang! Boom!_
+
+We plows straight for that door. Evidently we ain’t the only ones
+hunting for the open air, ’cause when we hits the crowd coming from the
+other side—blooey! They knocked me over backwards and I hit the keys of
+the piano with both elbows as I comes down. Magpie was behind me, and
+when we stops falling I’m setting on him with my feet over the piano
+stool.
+
+The fighting has moved out into the street. One kerosene lamp hangs like
+a drunken bird on a perch and flickers like it was about all in. I
+blinks the stars out of my eyes and then a voice under me begins to
+sing, soft and low—
+
+“It’s a long ways back to de-e-e-e-ear o-o-o-o-old mother’s knee-e-e.”
+
+He held that last note until I turned over and peered into his face.
+Then I got up and staggered over in front of the bar. There is Magpie,
+setting with his back against the rail. He don’t even look at me, but
+his lips seem to move, and so I leans closer to hear:
+
+“It’s—as—good—or—as—bad—as—any—other.
+If—it—wasn’t—as—for—circumstantial—evidence—we—wouldn’t——”
+
+“Be here,” says I. “Wake up, you asinine arguifier!”
+
+I yanks his feet around and he stares up at me foolish-like.
+
+“Wh-where’s the sheriff?” he whispers.
+
+“Over by the piano. I sat on him until he got sentimental.”
+
+“Where’s Peaceful?”
+
+“My gosh! Think I’m night-herding everybody?”
+
+“I ain’t thinking, Emily. Somebody hit my thinker so hard—say, woman,
+you better get out of sight. You’re a walking scandal!”
+
+I looks at myself and raises the ante. I’ve lost my skirt. Just then a
+card-table seems to get up and walk. It walks into a corner of the bar
+and out from under it comes Peaceful. He appears to have been hit
+several times. In fact, I’d say that he had been hit all of the time.
+
+He steadies himself against the bar and stares at us—mostly at me. He
+shakes his head and looks around, but his eyes turn back to me. After
+while he nods solemn-like and says:
+
+“Dead and in ——! I knowed I had it coming to me.”
+
+From over by the piano comes a high-pitched voice singing—
+
+“For I’m a po-o-o-o-or cowbo-o-o-o-oy and I know I’ve done wrong.”
+
+“We all have,” nods Peaceful. “’Less we did we wouldn’t be here,” and he
+staggers out of the place.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+I tears the top off that card-table and makes myself a nice green apron.
+Then me and Magpie walks outside and that Greasewood sheriff is right on
+our heels.
+
+“What do you want, feller?” asks Magpie.
+
+The sheriff sort of has trouble with his voice, but pretty soon he says—
+
+“You two——”
+
+That’s as far as he got. Magpie hit him so hard that his head hit the
+ground before his body did.
+
+“I figure he’s the one what hit me,” says Magpie, sucking his knuckles.
+“Somebody hit me, and they can’t do it and get away with it, believe
+me!”
+
+“They sure can’t,” says I. “I’d do the same, Magpie.”
+
+And right in the middle of the street I stripped that sheriff clean and
+piled what was left of them female clothes upon his sleeping form. Any
+time they tell you that clothes don’t make the man—let ’em wear skirts
+for a while.
+
+“What started it, anyway, Ike?” asks Magpie. “I don’t seem to _sabe_
+much.”
+
+“More of your circumstantial evidence. Peaceful thought that the sheriff
+had been sent here to take their preacher away from War Bonnet, and the
+War Bonneters objected at the top of their voices.”
+
+“Too bad, Ike. I hates deception in any form. Let’s find a couple of
+broncs. We’re going back and expose a fake preacher. _Sabe?_”
+
+We crosses the street and walks up the other side. Folks are beginning
+to drift back to the Golden Glow and we don’t want nobody to see us.
+Here and there we hears the pop of a gun, which shows that the spirit is
+still awake.
+
+We finds a rack full of horses and we sneaks up to look ’em over. I
+eases up to one and feels of the saddle. Honest to grandma, I took right
+hold of the cantle, and my fingers sunk into that bullet hole. I digs
+into the sheriff’s pockets and finds a match. It’s my bronc, as sure as
+shooting, and the one next to it is Magpie’s.
+
+“Glad I hit that danged sheriff, Ike,” says Magpie. “Didn’t take ’em
+long to appropriate our stuff, did it? Well, we ain’t stealing when we
+takes back our own property.”
+
+“Now,” says I, “let’s go far and fast.”
+
+“I don’t think we will. We’re going to get that money at Peaceful’s and
+we’re going to show up Greasewood’s minister. _Sabe?_”
+
+“Aw, ——! What do we care, Magpie? Leave the money where it is.”
+
+“We will not! I’m going to square myself by sending a preacher to the
+pen.”
+
+“Well, let’s get into the bedroom window then. I won’t walk through the
+front door and explain things to Mrs. Peaceful—or Peaceful.”
+
+We rode behind the house and tied our broncs and sneaked up to the
+window. Being in practise, we has no trouble getting in without making
+any noise. We didn’t no more than get inside when we hears voices in the
+parlor. We strains our ears.
+
+“You-all brings queer news,” opines Peaceful’s voice. “Almighty queer! I
+sure am shocked a heap.”
+
+“It’s the Gospel truth,” says another voice. “One of your citizens—Happy
+Harmon, I believe it was—bragged to one of my flock, or we would not
+have known it so soon.”
+
+“Augusta,” whispers a voice right beside us, “are you awake?”
+
+“Yes, sister. What is the matter?”
+
+I hears Magpie stiffen beside me and gasp under his breath:
+
+“The wrong room! My ——!”
+
+Then somebody knocks on the door.
+
+“Honey,” says Peaceful’s voice, “are you-all asleep?”
+
+“No, dear. What is wrong?”
+
+“Can you-all come out here?”
+
+“Not unless we dress. Why?”
+
+“Got some funny news to tell you. Can you-all cover up good so we can
+come in?”
+
+Me and Magpie slides to the floor and under the bed just as the door
+opens.
+
+“Reverend, this is my wife and her sister. Excuse ’em for being in bed.”
+
+“Not at all. Not at all. Don’t mention it.”
+
+“Honey,” says Peaceful, “them wasn’t preacher folks we had here.
+Dawg-gone ’em, they impostered upon us. Seems that the sheriff puts ’em
+in jail for robbing a bank and shooting the cashier. Sheriff took away
+their clothes, but they got away just the same and they burgled the
+Reverend’s home. They stole his clothes and his wife’s clothes, too,
+and——”
+
+“She—she wasn’t a woman?” gasps Mrs. Peaceful. “She wasn’t?”
+
+“Nope. She was a he.”
+
+“My heavenly home! She was going to sleep—Oh, my!”
+
+“Yes, they were low-down imposters,” says the preacher. “I came all the
+way down here to expose them. No doubt they had designs for some crooked
+work in War Bonnet. They are of low morals and a menace to society. It
+would give me great pleasure to lay my hands——”
+
+“Ow-w-w-w-w!”
+
+The sky-pilot was standing near the bed, so Magpie reaches out, grabs
+him by the feet and yanks him upside-down. I grabbed Peaceful. I only
+got one boot, but I sure yanked hard and I heard a rocking chair give up
+the ghost when he landed on it.
+
+Then me and Magpie skids out from under that bed and stops at the door
+with a gun in each hand. The women ducks under the covers, while the
+preacher and Peaceful looks up at us like we was ghosts.
+
+“Preacher,” pants Magpie, “you talk too much. _Sabe?_ We’re here to get
+the evidence that will send you over the road.”
+
+“O-over the r-r-road?” he gasps.
+
+“Danged right!” snaps Magpie. “You’re the jasper what robbed the bank.
+In that other room is two valises with a lot of money in ’em, and they
+came from your bedroom. _Sabe?_ Preacher ——! You ain’t no more preacher
+than I am!”
+
+“Two valises with money in them?” he gasps, turning green.
+
+“Yes, two valises with money in them!” mocks Magpie.
+
+“Ah!” The preacher sets up and stares at us. “You—you took those
+valises? Give them back to me—please. That is the money we raised in
+Greasewood to build a church. We—we thought it would be safer there than
+in the bank, don’t you see?”
+
+Me and Magpie looks at each other and then back at the two on the floor.
+
+“It’s in the other room,” says Magpie in a far-away voice. “You’re much
+obliged to it.”
+
+“Dud—don’t mention it,” says the preacher. “I—I never robbed any bank.
+The sheriff caught the real robbers early this evening and he came back
+to let you out, but you was gone. He brought your horses to War Bonnet.
+Said he was going to apologize and give them back to you, and——”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+But me and Magpie walked out of the front door, got on our broncs and
+drifted toward a very pale north star. When we’re out of sight of War
+Bonnet, Magpie skids his bronc across the trail and rolls a cigaret. I
+finds the makings in the sheriff’s pockets. He didn’t have anything else
+in them. I sent ’em back to him later—along with his gun. We got our
+smokes to going.
+
+“Feller men should be circumspect,” says I. “Each and every man should
+live like an open book. It ain’t noways possible for every crime to have
+a witness and you can’t acquit a man just because he sneaks up on his
+criminal occupation in the dark when everybody else is asleep.”
+
+“Ike,” says Magpie soft-like, “I hate to argue, but I’ll say right here
+and now that you’re crazy if you even think so. Tell you why you’re
+wrong. Just because a feller can’t prove he’s innocent——”
+
+And we went on our way rejoicing over another argument.
+
+
+[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in Adventure Magazine,
+February 18, 1920. It is believed to be in the public domain in the
+United States; copyright status may differ in other countries.]
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78928 ***